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Posted by Allison | August 31, 2015 | Comments Off on How Advertising and Marketing Work Together

This post was written by Brian Lawrence, one of the industry’s foremost authorities on marketing in the wedding industry. Brian has consulted with many wedding professionals and wholesale suppliers at www.brianlawrence.com. Brian also owns Local Traffic Builder, a nationally-known web design, marketing and social media firm serving the wedding and event industry. He is the author of “The Wedding Expert’s Guide to Sales and Marketing” and “The Invitation Business Report” and has helped thousands of industry professionals with his marketing insights through personal consultation, books, seminars, blogs and articles, and speaking engagements at leading industry conferences.

While many wedding professionals think that marketing and advertising are one and the same, there are important distinctions between the two. Advertising is a strategy for getting your business in front of as many potential clients as possible, while marketing is a strategy for making sure your business stands out from the competition. Both are necessary to reach and book wedding clients.

For your advertisement on WeddingWire or other online listings, your business should focus on:

Clearly communicating your products/services

Images and/or videos of your work

Consistent and recent client reviews

Pricing and/or any deals or discounts you offer

But for your marketing strategy, consider the following as ways to distinguish your business from the other listings the couple passed before you:

A well-written About section that describes who you are and why you’re a good choice

A website that provides more detail about your business and why you’re unique

Text on your website or blog that speaks their language to connect with potential clients

Strong calls-to-action that guide potential clients through the inquiry process

Both advertising and marketing are about pulling clients towards you, not pushing them to book you. The aforementioned tactics will help you drive potential clients to take action – whether the action is as small as clicking your ad or as big as signing a contract. When a bride sees a photo that she can imagine herself in, or a couple sees a review from an authentic client, they’re compelled to take action.

When planning a wedding, engaged couples are inundated with emails from both prospective and booked vendors. How do you make your emails stand out from the rest? The answer, though complex, is relevancy. The more relevant your email is to every person on your email list, the more likely your recipients are to open and click through to where you want them to go.

To make your emails more relevant to your prospects and clients, think about your emails as part of a strategic campaign. Below are three ways you can go back to basics to make the most of your email campaigns!

Simplify your email design

There are a lot of considerations for a great email campaign, but it all starts with the right design. Keep your designs clean and simple so that they’re easy to read. Don’t add too much content, which can make emails difficult for recipients to digest quickly. Be cautious when adding imagery so as to not overwhelm your readers, and use clear calls-to-action. If this sounds complicated to you, skip the design! Although research suggests that users prefer more images in emails, text-only emails can still be just as effective as designed emails since they often seem more personal. Try A/B testing the same email in a designed template and a text-only template to see what your audience prefers.

Focus on driving one action

The more clutter there is in your email, the harder it is for your recipients to know what action you want them to take. Each email you send should have a clear message that is simple and compelling, with a single call-to-action. If you have multiple actions you want recipients to take, think about segmenting your list or sending a series of emails to address each action. For example, segment your list by wedding date so that clients with weddings in the next few months are encouraged to take an action, and clients with wedding dates further away are encourage to take a different action. Or, if the actions you’re driving are sequential, set up a series of emails that encourages recipients to take each step at a time.

Posted by Paige | June 16, 2015 | Comments Off on Is Your Digital Content the Right Length?

When it comes to writing for your wedding business, there are a lot of things to keep in mind. The messaging in your blog posts should be consistent with your content your website, and your emails and social media posts should also reflect the same tone and voice. With all of those considerations, it’s easy to write too much (or sometimes too little) to keep it all straight!

If you’ve ever wondered how long your pieces of digital content should be, you’re not alone. Luckily for you, there’s a ton of research on exactly how long your digital content should be for ideal exposure and views on the various channels. Below are some of the findings:

Facebook. Research shows that posts shorter than 40 characters (meaning words and spaces or punctuation) had 86% higher engagement rates than longer posts. This isn’t to say that long Facebook posts are useless – in a lot of cases, there’s no way to condense information into less than 40 characters. If you can squeeze posts to under 80 characters, they get 66% more “likes” and comments.

Twitter. Twitter, unlike Facebook, is already very limited in the amount of content users can post. Ideal post length on Twitter is actually longer than ideal post length on Facebook, but it’s an easy number to remember: 100 characters. Twitter’s own research shows that medium-length tweets get the most re-tweets. Why? If users want to “quote” the tweet or retweet and add their own thoughts, they have enough characters left to do so. For optimally shareable tweets, aim for 70-100 characters.

Headlines. If you have a blog, pay close attention to this one! Just like people scan blog posts, (sad, but true) they scan the headlines. The maximum word count for headlines is just six words. Research shows that if a headline is longer than that, readers only look at the first three words and the last three words. Consequently, keeping headlines to six or fewer words ensures that readers pay attention to the whole headline. Plus, Google typically only displays 50-60 characters of the title in search results, so the shorter, the better!

This post was written by Brian Lawrence, one of the industry’s foremost authorities on marketing in the wedding industry. Brian has consulted with many wedding professionals and wholesale suppliers at www.brianlawrence.com. Brian also owns Local Traffic Builder, a nationally-known web design, marketing and social media firm serving the wedding and event industry. He is the author of “The Wedding Expert’s Guide to Sales and Marketing” and “The Invitation Business Report” and has helped thousands of industry professionals with his marketing insights through personal consultation, books, seminars, blogs and articles, and speaking engagements at leading industry conferences.

For most businesses, networking stops at the exchange of business cards – but not in the wedding industry. Building relationships is imperative for most wedding and events professionals to thrive in their market. The mutual intention for both parties is to refer customers on a regular basis. Sometimes wedding professionals even offer a financial reward or incentive each time a referral is made to increase the exchange of recommendations.

The next generation of commitment and collaboration is when Pros share access to a client. Shared access through a preferred vendor list is most common for venues and caterers. As an early rung on the planning ladder, venues and caterers are in the best position to recommend couples to other Pros. They have a strong sphere of influence in the process because they often represent the biggest financial commitment. Sometimes venues will also share the names of prospects who did not book; naturally those referrals are not as strong for the receiving vendor.

If referrals alone aren’t enough to support your wedding business, a best practice to try is cross-marketing with other vendors. Cross-marketing means that one Pro ties in an offer from another Pro for the purpose of using it as an incentive to sell their own service. Cross-marketing is mutually beneficial, since both professionals are rewarded if the couple ends up booking.

The Pro originally contacted by the couple presents something of value to make their offering seem stronger, when it’s at no cost to them. The recommended Pro has a chance to gain the business of the original Pro’s client while the actual couple receives the additional value.

Whether they advertise their wedding business on one site or dozens, many wedding professionals still believe that a lot of their local business comes from word of mouth – and for good reason! Having happy customers who refer you to their friends and family is a great way to get more business, and it’s not going anywhere in the near future. Even as online presence becomes more and more important, word of mouth marketing should not be overlooked.

Although word of mouth may seem like a more casual form of marketing, it’s not accidental! You can create a deliberate, planned strategy to build an army of fans and leverage them to help you attract more engaged couples. Below are some top word of mouth strategies to get you started!

Know when to ask

The most important part of any word of mouth strategy is to ask at the right time. The best time to ask for a consumer referral is after you’ve completed your work for their wedding or event – right when they couldn’t be happier with the way it all turned out. Ask at the event (if the moment is right and you have the opportunity), include it in your review request emails, or put reminders on your website and even on your receipts and invoices. Remind them to tell their friends about your business if they know anyone recently engaged, and let them know you would really appreciate the help. Happy customers are typically more than willing to pass your business name along to others if you truly exceeded their expectations. All you have to do is ask!

Offer something in return

If you’re really trying to grow through word of mouth strategies, consider offering something in return for those customers who provide a referral. This takes a little more work on your end – you’ll need to be sure you can track referrals in order to provide incentives – but the prospect of receiving a benefit can help activate happy clients who need a little push to help you out. Offer a special discount code if the event hasn’t yet occurred, or throw in a free or discounted product if you can. If your business does repeat business (florists, bakers, photographers, DJs), offer a free or discounted product for the future. These sorts of perks will make clients more likely to tell their friends about your business.

Posted by Allison | March 6, 2015 | Comments Off on Top Ways to Maximize Your Marketing Budget

With the end of winter in sight and the busy season right around the corner, now is the time to start preparing your business for success! You’ll want to use all your time to work on upcoming weddings and events, which means your marketing activity may fall by the wayside. Even if your calendar is full, it’s vital your marketing efforts are still driving couples to find your business.

We know that a marketing budget can quickly disappear if you’re not careful, but there are ways to maximize your existing budget to get the most out of your efforts. The best practices below will help you manage your marketing strategy without breaking the bank!

Decide on your goals

Before you start spending time or money on a specific marketing tactic or channel, decide on your business’ goals. If your marketing budget is limited, it’s extremely important to align all marketing activity with a certain goal. Do you want to book more weddings, or do you want to make more money on each wedding? Those goals are very different, so the marketing tactics and channels you should target are very different.

Evaluate your current activities

What marketing activities is your business currently engaged in? What’s working? What’s not working? Having a good understanding of the answers to these questions will help you evaluate where your needs are. Then, once you have you’ve decided on your business’ goals, you can evaluate your current activities as helping you to reach those goals. This will help you figure out which areas you’re weak in and how you can improve!

Although email isn’t a new medium, the way we communicate through email is changing. Technology, software and user behavior all influence the way we interact with our inboxes. In the fight for limited space in the inbox, email marketing strategies evolve each year.

Despite the daily inundation of emails in our inboxes, email marketing is still a great way to reach your audience and share timely and pertinent information! The following 2015 email marketing trends will help your wedding business stand out in the New Year.

Adding more images

Research suggests that users prefer image-based emails over text-based emails, so consider incorporating more images into your emails in 2015. Whether you purchase images through a licensing website or use those which you already have, use them in your emails to illustrate and emphasize the message you’re conveying. You can also take this a step further by using free graphic design software (like Canva) to add text and other effects to your images for a professional look. Just remember, though, that your entire email should not be ALL images – it’s still important to include both HTML and text-based code so email providers with stricter image settings will still see the email the way you want it to look! Mix images and text to make sure all your bases are covered in the event images don’t load properly in some email environments.

More A/B testing

Modern marketing strategies are largely based on data, meaning that businesses are getting smarter about the way they engage with clients. In order to gather data on the best send times, email length and messaging, try more A/B testing in 2015. With A/B testing, you send version A and version B to a small subset of your email list, then send the winning version (the version with the highest open rate) of the email to the rest of your email list. Most email service providers incorporate A/B testing as a feature to make it easy to try out different things. If your email service provider allows for A/B testing, they’ll automatically segment your list and send the winning version to the rest of the population for you so you don’t have to do it manually. This type of testing will help you learn how to optimize your emails and ultimately achieve better results.

Posted by Allison | December 1, 2014 | Comments Off on Make 2015 Your Mobile Marketing Year

It’s now officially the last month of 2014, which means it’s time to think about next year! There are probably a number of items on your business’ to-do list, but you should also consider mobile marketing as an addition to your goals.

This year, mobile devices overtook desktop Internet usage for the first time ever – in January, mobile devices accounted for 55% of Internet usage in the U.S. It’s safe to say that mobile marketing is here to stay! Below are some tips for making 2015 your business’ mobile marketing year.

Assess your mobile readiness

Before you start creating your mobile marketing strategy, assess your business’ mobile readiness. Do you have an optimized mobile website? Is your business’ website responsive on all devices? Do you have the ability to create a mobile app for your business? Answering these questions can help you determine where you should start and how far your strategy can take you! Remember that there’s no sense in dedicating time or money on mobile marketing efforts if you’re not ready to provide a good mobile experience for potential clients.

Enhance your existing mobile presence

Mobile websites are different from their desktop counterparts in that the screen is much smaller and there’s no mouse, so the way a person uses your website will be different. They’ll need big, easy-to-click buttons rather than text links, and you’ll want to break up the copy on your web pages to make them easier to read on small screens. If you don’t have a responsive website design, you can easily create a mobile website with our Mobile Website Creator. Our tool allows you to paste a quick bit of code to your website, which will make it so your website is optimized for mobile devices.

This article was written by Rick Brewer of Wedding Business Marketing. Rick has 22+ years in marketing and selling to wedding couples and is known for his proprietary approach to the psychology of wedding buying. Rick has worked with over 2100 wedding businesses, spoken to 250 + wedding groups and regularly shares his insight on wedding industry trends and cycles.

If you’ve never used Groupon to find daily deals in your area, you’re in the minority. The deal-of-the-day website features discounted products or services in your area which you can buy for a limited period of time. These types of deals are often successful because they raise awareness about a business and bring in a rush of new customers.

Several years back I actually praised Groupon for their effective use of email marketing – since the deals on Groupon change daily, they send daily emails to alert users to new local offers. These emails are also based on behavior, which means Groupon can send emails with more relevant offers to users. It’s a great email marketing strategy that yields high open and click through rates.

Through the past few years, Groupon has grown to include other offerings like Groupon Getaways to help travelers book cheaper travel deals. However, the giant misstep I see with Groupon is that it has recently started the Groupon Wedding Shop, which offers wedding products and services at dramatic discounts.

There are three main reasons why I think Groupon Weddings are a bad approach for your wedding business to consider:

The wedding industry is a specialty industry. A wedding professional’s experience, training and personality come into play in their business as well as the results for the client. What we offer is typically unique to us as providers. You can offer what you sell for twice the price of a competitor, but your business’ quality could be totally worth the difference. The products and services we provide cannot be lumped into one price or discounted rate – there are too many other factors involved.

The only differentiating factor on Groupon is price. This thought process is a true disservice to couples searching for wedding professionals. Focusing on price will talk many couples out of the professionals who can truly be a perfect match for their wedding. In weddings, there are no “do-overs.” Lower-quality vendors with little experience can easily ruin one of the most important days in a couple’s lives. Your business should be able to justify your higher price to potential clients rather than offer discounted rates to compete with other local Pros.

Posted by Allison | October 29, 2014 | Comments Off on The Internet: Your New “Permanent Record”

This post is by Jennifer Reitmeyer. Jennifer has worked in the wedding industry since 1997. In addition to owning MyDeejay, an award-winning wedding entertainment firm serving the Washington, D.C. market, she also maintains a wedding business blog, WeddingIQ, and a blogging and social media service for wedding businesses, Firebrand Messaging. Jennifer is available for small business coaching, speaking, and writing opportunities. Read more at jenniferreitmeyer.com.

As valuable as the Internet is to couples planning a wedding, it’s equally invaluable to Pros in the business of selling weddings. Websites, blogs and social media have made it easy to adjust your pricing, roll out promotions and even overhaul your branding. However, keep in mind that the Internet has become a permanent record of sorts, with archive sites and mirror sites creating a history of practically everything that’s ever been published online.

That’s why it’s so important to make strategic decisions and take a long view approach when branding your business and setting your rates. Savvy clients and smart business owners tend to watch the market over time — they’re aware of what various companies are offering and how much they’re charging. And when a company constantly flip-flops on its pricing or drastically alters its entire image, people notice.

In my own market, I’ve heard lots of buzz about Pros who’ve arbitrarily doubled their rates, halved their rates, blasted people with coupons and threatened massive price increases. All of these changes, and the branding confusion that results, have been documented forever, thanks to the Internet.

Obviously, every business owner needs to make adjustments to accommodate a changing market. I’m all for making tweaks to your image, and even rebranding completely when it makes sense to do so. However, with your every business move captured online and added to your “permanent record,” it’s essential that the choices you make are carefully considered. Can you explain a huge price increase or reduction when someone’s aware of what you used to offer? (And believe me, even if your clients haven’t yet noticed, your competitors have!) If you’re rebranding, do you have a clear reason why, and are you able to account for how the “new” you is different from the old you?

If we’re all stuck with that online permanent record, let it be one that documents a series of logical, strategic growth and transformation over time.

By now your wedding business should be aware that mobile marketing is on the rise. While you know it’s something your business should be doing, it’s another thing entirely to start up a mobile marketing campaign or program! You can mobilize your website, Storefront and emails, but those are not your only options for reaching engaged couples on their mobile devices.

If you’re interested in sending immediate information on a more personalized basis, here’s a brief introduction to mobile opt-in marketing!

What it is

Traditional marketing tactics do not require your target audience to opt-in because most traditional marketing tactics are 1-to-many – meaning that one business is communicating with many people with one message. Traditional marketing tactics include print advertising, direct mail or radio and television ads. With the social media revolution, social networks opened up two-way communication with their audience. Now users can “like” your business’ page on Facebook and interact directly with your business. This change caused other changes in marketing strategies to shift from sending a mass message to crafting more relevant and timely messages based on behavior.

Opt-in marketing means that users have given your business permission to send them information on a 1-to-1 basis. The best and most popular use of opt-in marketing is email marketing – if you don’t have explicit permission to email a given person (whether they opt-in through your website or establish a business connection with you) you’re likely to be marked as spam and suffer other penalties.

Mobile opt-in marketing is very similar to email marketing, except that instead of giving you permission to send them emails, users are giving you permission to send them voice, text or other mobile messages to their smartphones or cell phones. Mobile opt-ins go beyond being able to interact with your business via smartphone; the user is giving you permission to push messages directly to their phone number.

How to do it

If you’ve ever opted-into an email newsletter list for a publication or individual business, you’ve seen how easy it can be! You’ll need to create a form to collect the phone numbers as well as some simple legal language to lay out your terms and conditions. These terms will explain in detail what you are and are not allowed to do with the user’s phone number. CTIA – The Wireless Association and Mobile Marketing Association have some great best practices for messaging consumers in the U.S.

As engagement season ramps up and couples start the first stage of wedding planning, your business is likely about to see an increase in wedding inquiries. For many wedding professionals, an email auto-reply is the simplest (and quickest) way to respond.

However, nothing shouts “auto-reply email” more than the typical “Your email has been received” response. Email is not a new channel, so it’s assumed that when a person sends an email that the recipient receives it. It’s nice to let him or her know that the email was received, but it’s important that that’s not the only message you include in the email. You need to add value right at that first touch.

Below are five Pro tips for auto-reply email best practices that will help you immediately add value so you can convert more of those initial wedding inquiries into paying clients!

Set expectations up front

If you know that you spend most of your days out of the office or performing tasks that take you away from the computer, use an email auto-reply to set expectations for the potential client to hear back from you. Be specific; don’t simply state that you’ll reply “soon.” It’s implied that if you want their business, you’ll reply “soon.” Give a specific time period where they can reasonably expect to hear back from you – and be sure to respond within that time period!

Provide everything they need

If you want to suggest that they call for faster service or for more pressing requests, provide your business’ phone number right there in the email. They’ve already gone through your business’ Storefront and website to find your email or submit a contact request, so don’t make them do it again! You can also add your business’ address and hours of operation to make it easy for them to know how and when to reach you if something should happen with their email.

Don’t regurgitate your website

While you want to provide everything they need, don’t regurgitate your website. You don’t need to fully describe your services or go through your business’ mission statement in your auto-reply email. You want to find the sweet spot where you’re providing helpful, valuable information but without repeating everything they’ve already read on your website. A good way to decide how much information to include would be to put yourself in the potential client’s shoes and go through the contact process from finding your business to email. That should inform you about what information they’ve already seen and what information they still might not know!